Andyjr1515

If it works. Nutty - if it doesn't

So why is cutting the two 4mmx4mm slots such a challenge? Well, with a standard router, you have to fix the neck immovably and dead flat - and then you have to get the router itself to run in a dead straight path for half a meter with less than 0.2mm drift. And, unlike a Fender neck, the headstock on the Vox doesn't sit flat with the heel - so there are no convenient surfaces to put double-sided tape to stop the neck moving around (which, if it happened, would spell disaster). And you can't use clamps because they get in the way of the router Then, with a router table, you don't have to clamp the neck at all. BUT you would normally run the side of the neck along the table fence which gives you the dimensional accuracy...but then the headstock would hit the fence and move it a couple of inches...not good for the 'no more than 0.2mm drift' So enter the, probably, least used accessory that comes in some of the Dremel sets - the radius jig: Now, for cutting radii, 'precision' is emphatically not its middle name. But I'm not thinking of using it to cut a radius Add a spare strip of 2mm thick binding (in the picture above)...then fitting the Dremel with a decent quality and sharp 1.6mm router bit: Then inset the binding strip into the slot and run the router (keeping it square) up the slot, keeping firm pressure of the jig spike against the binding strip: ...gives me a 1.5mm slot parallel to the trussrod slot. Then removing the binding strip and repeating, this time running the jig spike along the side of the trussrod slot: ...gives me a slot 3.6mm wide - giving me, at worst, a modicum of inadvertent drift room or, at best, a small tidy up with a sharp chisel. Then turn it round and repeat on the other side. Might work

Although not much to show for it, in the background things are still progressing with this. At the moment, @Fishman and I are looking at colour options. I'm still experimenting, but this is a possible contender. Ignore the orbital sander 'snail trails' - on this test block, I'm just whacking it with a 60 grit disc to get to bare wood each time before trying the next colour. In the meantime, the fret slots at the edges of the board have been filled and sanded and the next couple of days will see the frets levelled and re-crowned

No...it means you must

Got it! It'll need to be tomorrow when I can take a photo to explain my mad plan...but I do indeed have a mad plan!

Good thought - I would need a variation on the theme because the 4mm bit I have won't take a bearing, but I see where you're coming from. The alternative I also thought was a tapered packer for the length of the neck with the outer edge ending up at the same width as the headstock all the way down. Then I would be able to run it along the router table fence in the normal way. It's a bit like your idea but upside down

I think that might be in the territory of 'too hard' If I can think of a reliable way of guiding it, then I suppose face down on the router table makes the most sense. But using the fence is tricky because the headstock gets in the way. I'm pondering on somehow getting some guide pegs that could sit in the truss rod slot...

Just checked with the straight edge and the bow has come back a touch, although only by about 0.5mm . That being said, as @HazBeen said earlier, it pays to sit on the cautious side and so I have ordered a couple of carbon fibre rods to insert. For this kind of thing, I go fairly modest - 4x4mm box section. Super light but very stiff. The advantage is that they don't take too much of the gluing face away and they also don't take too much of the neck wood away They should be with me Monday/Tuesday so that gives me a day or so to work out how on earth I'm going to clamp the neck / guide the router!

Good question. I tend to do the final slurry and buff a little patch at a time so I don't get one area drying while I'm still working on another area. So, say for the maple stripes at the back, I would tend to do one mahogany side first, then finish by wiping the maple with the grain to take off any red slurry, then do the other side the same way and then do the middle maple cluster. As long as it hasn't got dry and sticky - and as long as the wood is pretty smooth-sanded to start off with - then it is usually easy enough to wipe off any excess that is the 'wrong' colour.

I'm banking on everyone having run out of films to watch on Netflix here...but think of this as more a celebration of a great musician playing rather than the rather shameless self-promotion of the builder Matt still has most of my guitars and basses. He says it's because of Covid lockdown but I suspect that MrsAndyjr1515 is probably paying him a pretty sum to keep them over in Notts. Anyway, he's just put this video up. It's just an impromptu study in A, but it's pretty. On it is the Camphor Single Cut bass I built for Kert and my own 'Swift Lite' 6 string electric. Nice to have a reminder what it looks like If you like the playing, don't forget to pop a 'Like'... I know Matt will appreciate it

Thanks, Pete. Hope all good over in Ipswich

Take 100 guitar and bass builders and there will be 100 different ways of finishing - so, as normal, all I can do is outline how I personally do it. And for both stained and natural woods, and whether I will eventually leave it satin or go for full polyurethane gloss, I usually start at the same place - the trusted old 'Tru-Oil slurry and buff' method. What I find is that - even if I'm going to apply a different finish in the end - it is a great way of grain filling, sealing and finish sanding all in one process. The method is well covered in a number of builds or gun-stock finishing videos (which is what Tru-oil was originally designed for) but essentially it is: - using wet and dry sandpaper where the 'wet' is actually tru-oil and creating a slurry with the sanding dust that fills grain and small aberations with a wood-coloured filler - then wipe off across the grain while still wet, leaving the residue in the troughs of the grain - then, once dry, repeat (usually 2-3 times) but this time with finer paper and not only wipe off while still wet, but buff up (by hand) to a satin finish And this, below, is after just after 2 coats, the first slurry and wipe coat with 320 grit paper yesterday and then, this morning, a slurry and buff coat with 400 grit: And, just for @SpondonBassed - a pseudo volute: To the touch, this is all silky smooth already

Yes - and what could possibly go wrong there! But yes, I'm inclined to agree.

The finish prep has gone well. It's a bit like decorating where all the preparation takes for ever and then the final painting goes pretty quickly. Anyway, the first of the final finish coats is on. I'll do a couple more before I take a shot or two to show how it's starting to turn out. So maybe a couple of photos tomorrow but certainly by Sunday. For the finished finish look, I need to double check with @Jus Lukin to what he prefers (eg degree of satin or gloss) but, the way I go about it, these latter stages I'm doing at the moment are common to all of my natural wood finishes.

Resigned...maybe. Given up...never

OK - so far so good. I took off the clamps and the bow has reduced considerably: This is around 1mm at the centre - yesterday it was over 5mm. I'm going to leave it 24 hours at room temperature and then check it again to see if there is a tendency for it to bow more. If so, then I think it will need a couple of carbon rods either side of the rod. But if it holds this set, then I think that is something that the new rod alone would be able to manage - it takes no effort to close the above gap to flat. In the meantime, I will order the replacement truss rod. The 6mm wide slot would suit a modern two-way rod just fine - although the bottom of the slot, curved to use with a single action rod, will need to be packed to give it a reasonably even depth. That said, because they work in a different way, I think a modern rod would put less stress on the neck (and the rod).

Ref the bridge, to be honest I think @ForbiddenWytch 's planned solution is going to be fine. Here is a typical offset with an 8 saddle system: The octave strings will be, typically, 2-3mm forward of their bass counterparts (similar to the offset between the G and the A/E on a 4 string) This is pretty much the same with a 12-string acoustic where there are octave strings on the bottom four pairs. And with these, of course, you only have the width of the bone saddle to file the difference (this is a pre-made one, but you achieve the same with a solid saddle by filing so the fulcrum for each string is towards the front or towards the back of the saddle): So putting these two concepts together, and with @ForbiddenWytch saying above that he is going to put a different saddle set on a Badass II bridge... : ...then all he will need to do is intonate the saddle to the octave string and then, with a bit of 'get close and then creep up on it' approach, just file the bass string slot of each affected pair backwards by the appropriate 2-3mm. The saddles have more than enough thickness to allow the slots to be cut back the appropriate amount. Having cut acoustic saddles on both 12-string guitars and the recent Guitar Bouzouki, I personally can't see a problem...

Wow! Quite something

To get the fretboard off, I am going to use four things: a travel iron; a single-edged razor blade; a very thin steel sheet; a LOT of patience! It can take approaching a couple of hours because, in order to avoid damaging the fretboard or neck jointing surfaces, you have to get the glue REALLY hot so it properly melts - and some glues melt more easily than others. So the iron is on hot and took around 20 minutes just sitting on this area... : ...until I could get a razor cleanly between the two parts: This first stage takes the longest. I need to ensure that the blade will go in through the whole area before I can then insert my steel sheet and move the iron on a few inches. I use the steel sheet to stop the still soft glue from simply regluing behind me as I move slowly along: Then it really is just a case of inching everything a few mm at a time along. Rushing can easily end in tears But eventually, here it is. Fretboard off and both faces and all four edges undamaged: Next is removal of the packing strip to be able to remove the truss rod: The neck is most definitely bowed - around 5mm at the centre - and the trick of just bending it back is probably just not going to be sufficient. I'm thinking maybe a couple of carbon rods either side of the replacement truss rod, but we'll see. However, the less our solution is fighting against the wood the better. So I cleaned the glue off the top face of the neck and thoroughly soaked this side: This is make this face expand and therefore temporarily start straightening the neck. But I need to make that a more permanent effect. So, with either end packed a couple of mm to add a teeny amount of back bow, it is now clamped firmly to the bench and will stay there at least overnight until it is dry. Then it will be at least flat enough to assess whether it needs more than just a replacement trussrod...

@Raslee has sent me the neck - and what a nice neck it is But yes - it does have issues. As @Raslee says above, the truss rod is broken, but as he also mentions, there is a significant bow set in the neck. And there's a bit more - the fretboard is actually coming away from the neck. You can see both the bow and the separation here: I suspect that the trussrod, trying manfully to counteract the above bow plus the extra bow from the string tension, finally started to pop the board off. So far, though, there doesn't seem to be anything unfixable. First job is therefore taking off the fretboard and having a look at what's going on under there...

Agreed. Pretty much every element is off the scale. Love it

This is mighty fine work...

While I was doing the same on @Jus Lukin headless, I mixed epoxy with ebony dust and (over)filled the fretslots: In terms of buying tools and equipment, I am sure I am in good company to say that I agonise - sometimes over years - over the more pricey stuff when, admittedly with a lot more effort, you can actually get the job done with simpler stuff. Not least with sanding - because there's not a lot you can't do with a £2 cork block and a piece of sandpaper. But I suppose this reticence pays off - because when I do invest in something better, I usually know exactly why and what improvement it is there to make and - so far - have rarely been disappointed. So enter this orbital sander: Draw-droppingly expensive against the kind of things you can get in Homebase, etc. - but do I have to say worth every penny so far I still have some corners and so on to sort, and also the final work on the cutouts and neck pocket, but it will be soon ready to start staining and finishing: So next task is find the right combination of dyes/stains for 'the look'. And I have an offcut of this ash to try them on

You're all very naughty boys!

The customer, as they say, is king. So a bit more progress. Hatch cut. Again most builders have their own ways, but I cut a paper template from the recess already cut: I cut the blank out on the bandsaw a mm or so oversize and then use the real high-tech stuff: I start with the straight run at the top and just follow the overlapped edge round with the sanding block a cm at a time. Until: ..it fits (private thought...PHEW!) With a quick sealing coat, I'm pleased that the grain is broadly in the same direction . Once it is all fully finished, it will the the same shade too. So, two more jobs to do, hopefully this afternoon: final sanding of the body cutouts and edges and the profile tweaks of the neck...and then it's the start of the finishing processes. With this part of the build process being a bit like watching paint tru-oil dry, I won't do a blow by blow - I'll do a summary of the method and show you the results when it's done Watch this space